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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: t2 who wrote (15876)	2/12/1999 4:54:00 AM
From: RTev	Respond to of 74651

I agree with your analysis. Microsoft is as successful as it is because they have consistently made great products. But they also brought all those products to market with great timing. I've never thought the company was particularly innovative, but they sure know a good idea when somebody else comes up with it and do a great job of perfecting and selling the idea. While WordPerfect and Lotus ignored the Macintosh, Microsoft recognized that it was closer to an ideal user system and developed two programs to take advantage of it: Excel and Word. When the folks over in the other buildings developed Windows, Microsoft had products that were ready for the system because they'd been honed on the Mac. Microsoft recognized the significance of the Mac in the 80s, but missed the "next great thing" in 94-95 when the internet was exploding. But did they screw up with the DOJ or just screw up in general by not recognizing their own strengths? IE4 is a better browser than Nav4, but Microsoft doesn't seem to have given their own people time needed to get to that point. IE2 was a dreadful browser for the time (basically just the Mosiac browser that Andreasen and his buddies had built years before). IE3 was much better but still not as good as Nav3. It looks to me, from hearing the trial testimony, that Microsoft panicked at that point. Rather than trusting that they could win in the market, they decided to use the Windows franchise to force users to accept their browser for good or bad. In hindsight, it looks like MS would have won the "browser battle" without the high-pressure and bundling, but it also looks like they didn't give it time.